Classic milestones: national atlases

Summary

This article traces the planning, organization, and publication of China’s national atlas project. Included in the national science development plan in 1956, the project established a compilation committee and an editorial office at the Map Publishing House in 1958. The physical atlas was completed in 1965 and printed for internal circulation in 1967, while other compilation work was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. Resumed in 1981, the project adopted five volumes: general, physical, agricultural, economic, and historical atlases. The agricultural, economic, general, and recompiled physical atlases appeared in 1990, 1993, 1995, and 1999, respectively; the three-part historical atlas was described as forthcoming. The article discusses collaboration among institutions and specialists, bilingual editions and electronic versions of selected volumes, domestic scientific awards, and assessments by international cartographers. The author credits the project with supplying information for planning, research, and teaching, encouraging national and provincial atlas compilation, and training cartographic professionals, and regards it as representing China’s highest contemporary level of cartography.